I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a nurse's seat for tending a plurality of patient stations which are spaced apart from each other.
II. Description of the Prior Art
In military ambulances and like vehicles, a generally elongated and rectangular area is provided for transporting multiple patients. Typically, a plurality of cots or patient's stations are provided along each side of the rectangular area so that the cots are positioned end to end with respect to each other thus leaving a central passageway open. In addition, in many of these previously known vehicles, two vertically spaced rows of patient cots are provided on each side of the central passageway in order to maximize the patient capacity of the ambulance.
The open central passageway in the ambulance not only allows patients to be loaded into and removed from the various patient stations, but also enables a nurse, i.e. a physician or a medic, to attend to the various patients as required. The ability of the nurse to efficiently attend to the patients, however, is greatly hampered since the nurse must move both longitudinally along the ambulance and tend to patients in both the upper and lower rows of cots. The necessity of the nurse to squat in order to treat the patients in the lower row and to stretch to treat the patients in the upper row, all while the ambulance is moving, is very tiring and leads to rapid fatigue for the nurse.
One previously known system to reduce nurse fatigue is to provide a sliding platform along the upper row of patients stations. In use, the nurse sits on the sliding platform when treating patients in the lower rows of patients stations and stands on the ambulance floor when treating the patients in the upper rows.
This previously known nurse's seat, however, has not proven wholly satisfactory in use. One substantial disadvantage of this previously known nurse's seat is that it is awkward to use since the seat extends entirely between the lower rows of patients stations. A still further disadvantage of this previously known seat is that it is still fatiguing for the nurse to repeatedly and alternately sit on the seat and stand on the ambulance floor.